Ephesians 5:22-33
Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
Tick live off their hosts, but give nothing in return. Except a disease. These are considered parasites. Oxpeckers also live off their hosts - but they actually benefit their hosts at the same time. This is called mutualism.
So we took a couple of weeks to look at the verse which slides right into this next section. Be subjecting yourselves to one another. This is an outflow of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Be ranking yourselves under one another. In the fear of Christ. All y’all. A level playing field. Not because of who or what we are, but because of Who He is. There ARE positions of human authority, but nobody is better than anyone else. No matter your education or ethnicity or economics. Or gender. And we talked about the need for trust. And humility. And surrender. Ultimately to the Lord. But in ranking ourselves under one another we are giving life-authority to each other, permission to speak into our lives, into our choices. Truthing in love.
And if we're honest, we admit that we don’t always like to do that. It’s hard on the ego. It takes work. People are messy. Plus we are the progeny of rebels. But God’s plan for the nations begins with a family, a family-blessing family - the church, a bunch of mutually-subjected rebelholics - and this family is comprised of families. BACK in the beginning, God CREATED a family. Male and female He CREATED them, joined them together, one flesh, life-partners, perfectly paired for one another, a partnership. Be fruitful and multiply. Subdue the earth. Bless the nations. And these families (some of them at least) come together in God's family to bring this promise of blessing to fruition.
There are many segments of our society which bow up against the idea of God as Creator. Questioning His authority. Questioning His Word. Did God really say that? Distorting the truth.
2Timothy 3:15 …from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
2Peter 3:15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Matthew 5:18 “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”
God has been speaking to the sons and daughters of Adam for millenia. And He has something to say to us today. The passage we’re about to look at today has something to say to us today. There are those who choke on what Paul is saying here - I think many times they’re not open or patient enough to take a deeper look. There are others who will simply ignore the passage. Teach around it. But I think this passage is a critical part of what the Lord was trying to say to this 1st century assembly - and it is so for us too. Today, there is an ongoing struggle to understand and represent and carry out God’s plan for marriage, this God-ordained God-designed relationship which forms the foundation for the family-blessing families which are to carry God’s goodness and the Good News of Christ, to all the families of the earth. God’s inspired Word gives us a blueprint - and when we take the time to try and understand it, I think we find that it is not quite so repressive and victorian as the skeptics would make it seem. And we find an unfathomable… [now is a good time to read the passage if you haven't already...]
What do you notice? 10 times Paul specifically refers to the relationship between Christ and the church. His church. His bride. And the deeper truth Paul is telling us here is that there is a mystery in play in marriage. An unfathomable mystery. In God’s divine design, marriage between a man and a woman gives the world a glimpse of a heavenly reality. Marriage gives the world a glimpse of the relationship between Christ and His church. Or should.
Remember God’s commands which protect and provide for us also show us where we fall short. Some of our (anti)instincts. Last week we took a look back at the garden - we saw that the wife wanted her own way. She wanted to run out in front of her husband. And the consequences were devastating. In marriage, woman’s (anti)instinct is to dominate.
The husband - what was he doing? Nothing. We see him being passive, silent. It’s a perfectly devastating pairing. Then when he finally speaks, he is rejecting responsibility. Shedding it like a bad coat. Not only is he NOT protecting his woman from the serpent, from the inevitable deadly consequences of transgression, when it comes time to pay the piper he throws his wife under the bus! In marriage, man’s (anti)instinct is to save himself. Even at the expense of others. Irresponsible. He might even be an abuser. “He will rule over you…”
So, understanding these (anti)instincts, Paul now devotes three verses to the woman, and eight to the man. And I would suggest, v 21 is prerequisite. If you don’t mind I’d like to skip forward to the longer portion, and then come back. I’d like to look at what Paul is saying to the husbands first. Genesis 2.23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman [ishshah], because she was taken out of Man [ish].”
This is a close and intimate relationship that Adam could not find apart from one who shared his own station and nature. Shared his own life. Which she did, of course, because she was made not out of the dust like Adam but directly from the stuff of Adam himself. It reflect’s God’s desire to provide man with a companion who would be his lifelong intellectual and physical (and spiritual) counterpart.
So, husbands: be loving your wives. Constantly. God’s perfectly prepared partner for you. As Christ loved the church. Men get a present tense command (and it's mentioned FOUR TIMES in this section…) - so keep on doing it, keep on doing it, constantly, keep on loving your wives, every day. Give yourself up for her, as Christ loved the church and gave up Himself for her. Which is aorist tense, a simple completed action in the past. What did He do? To which simple act is Paul referring? Jesus died. He took the nails.
So, men - take the nails. Take the bullet. Stop the buck. Be her rescuer every day, just like Jesus. Don’t throw her under the bus - grab her out of the path of the bus - and if needed you get run over. Or maybe you carry her onto the bus. Not because she can’t walk - she is perfectly capable. [1Peter 3:7 “…show (your wife) honor as a co-heir of the grace of life…”]. You are not showing her need for you. Husbands demonstrate Christ’s provision for us. Our need for Christ. The love of Christ. You are giving the world - and your wife - a picture of Jesus.
Sadly, I think many of us men, we sort of pull out the stops when we’re dating, and get our bride to the altar where we say “I do”, and then we sort of don’t. We begin to slack off on laying down our lives. We sort of fall into this cultural rut that turns our life partner into something little better than a servant. But marriage begins with Christ. And what did He do? He emptied Himself. He laid aside His rights, His wants, and stepped out of the comfy confines of His glorious abode and came down to this stinky smelly broken planet - to serve, to give Himself up and lay down His life for His bride. He took the nails. The nails which were headed in our direction - He said, uh uh. Not today. Not ever. I got this.
Nourish and cherish. Nourish and cherish. Just as Christ does the church. How does Christ do that actually? How does He feel about His bride, would you say? What does He do for His bride? He wants for His bride to be presented in all her glory. Having no spot or wrinkle. Holy and blameless. What does that look like, Adam? Let’s be less like ticks and more like oxpeckers. Husband - what will it look like for you to take the nails for your wife today? This week? This year? What will it look like for you to step up and lay down your life for your wife this year?
And then we see Paul saying, wives, humbly rank yourself under your husbands. As to the Lord. This is not saying that your husband is not better than you. God does not love him any more than you. But in this amazing God-ordained partnership, you defer to your husband. Wives, be subjecting yourselves to your husbands. Be respecting them. Be ranking yourselves under them. As to the Lord. We are all subjecting ourselves to Christ first and to one another in fear of Christ, but Paul is telling the wives to specifically do this in relation to their husbands. Don’t dominate, don't run out in front of them. And be assured that you are in no way showing your inferiority to any man. Wives demonstrate the superiority and trustworthiness of Christ.
Submit and respect. I know that is not ‘PC’, not what women want to hear. Even some men. Respect your husbands, God says. I know, that man maybe doesn’t deserve respect. Guess what - that’s not even the word in the Greek. The bar is higher. The word is phobeo. Where we get our English word, phobia. 97x this verb appears in the NT, and always, every single time it is rendered fear, afraid, terrified, frighten. Every single instance but one - this verse, where the translators decided they needed to translate phobeo as ‘respect’. Linguists actually do create a second meaning for this verb, rendering it as to revere, venerate, treat with utmost deference and reverential obedience. Which is precisely how people are to relate to the God of heaven. Now I relate to a real God or king or master with real fear not merely because I am "supposed to" or because they deserve it but also because they can take me out. There is real fear in that mix. I may be convinced of their love for me, that they care about me and would never intentionally do anything to harm or unjustly punish me, thus I have the whole love-casting-out-fear thing, but the fact remains that by virtue of their position and/or power, they do instill fear in me at a certain level. And yet here, in this one instance, we have translators (unnecessarily) carving out a diluted lower level of reverence for how wives should relate to their husbands. Mere respect. A feeling of admiration. Regard for the man’s feelings or wishes. Realizing that they are important and should be treated in an appropriate way. But that is not quite the same as fear or reverence. Even the word ‘revere’ comes from the latin and is an intensified form of ‘to fear’. This dumbing down of this word by modern translators, is this a nod to modern-day cultural pressure? Is it because wives find it hard to fear/reverence their husbands, or perhaps they somehow don’t have to anymore? Because I don’t see a separate dumbed-down level for how husbands should love their wives. Yes, it is impossible (humanly-speaking), but that in no way lowers the bar.
Obviously the fear in this case does not derive from any position of supreme power or ownership of the man over the woman. The fear and reverence in this case is ultimately of the Lord Himself. As to the Lord. It derives from the opportunity given to the woman to display how the church relates to Christ. It is not at all about the man or what he does or whether or not he has earned the right to be deeply and fearfully respected. Wives, you must consider well how to relate to your husband with reverence, with fear, as to Christ…! But let’s be honest, if your man is taking the nails and bullets for you, if he is loving you and laying down his life for you, for your progress in holiness, how difficult is it going to be to relate to him out of reverence for Christ? v.21 is key!
And let's keep in mind that, for all of us, male and female, our (anti)instinct is me-first. We are more like ticks than oxpeckers. What’s in it for me? We should be able to rank ourselves under the one who lays down their life for us, shouldn’t we? We should be able to trust them. Entrust our well-being to them, trusting that they have our best interests at heart? And do they always? Jesus does, yes, but He is perfect, isn’t He? What about on the earthly level? When Paul and Peter tell us to be subjecting ourselves to the king (or boss or parent or husband or each other), is there an asterisk behind that command? Is there an escape clause which says we get some leeway when the person isn’t perfect? Let’s be honest, we all struggle even to surrender and give the Lord the authority in our lives, and He is the perfect Savior. He laid down His life for us, He took the nails, and we still have trouble giving Him the authority He deserves in our life. In marriage - as in life - we subject (wives) and lay down our lives (husbands) because it gives the world a picture of the reality of Christ - AND because it is good for our hearts.
Our society says, throw off the despot! There’s been a long train of abuses and usurpations! Pursuit of happiness! Really? Now I don’t think we stay in a home that’s dangerous - but is there hope for your marriage? Is anything too difficult for the Lord? I’m afraid what we have, however, in too many a home is a broken vicious cycle of un-selfless tired husbands saving themselves, being un-reverenced and disrespected and domineered by their wives. So he sacrifices less and less and she respects less and less and the cycle continues unbroken, marriages breaking apart on the rocky shores of Cape Self. That's where the problem begins, when you bring two imperfect instinctively-tick-ish people into such close proximity to one another. Plus, on top of that, life is just hard. There are no guarantees. Wealth is certainly no guarantee. For-better-or-worse can (and eventually does) take a turn for the worse. Poorer can easily replace richer. Sickness invariably replaces health. And the world says, just pull the plug. But church, the stakes are high, as high as the heavens above, and the world is dying for a glimpse of something (and Someone) better. Take a good long hard look at how you fit (or don't) into these verses, and then take a better longer harder look at Jesus and ask Him, beg Him, trust Him to transform your marriage, to transform YOU, the way you live and relate to the spouse HE GAVE YOU (or perhaps will give you!), into a clearer picture of His design for how Biblical marriage between a man and a woman should show off the glorious relationship between Him and His bride, the Church. And you better be willing to ask for help…
1Corinthians 11:11-12
However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God.
Practical question: How is that we can build and strengthen these relationships…? How can we forge marriages that increasingly show off the relationship of Christ with His bride?
A few ideas as we close... First and foremost, walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. Cuz this stuff is impossible without His divine enabling. Keep common interests. Do things together, NOT just with the kids. And NOT just in front of the tv. Go out together. Have a meal together. Serve together. Jump into a small group together. Pray together. Keep short accounts and long fuses, and be ready to apologize AND forgive. Get off that device. Go to bed at the same time.
All things are through Him. And all things are for Him. To show off how truly breathtaking He is. Make it so, Lord Jesus
No comments:
Post a Comment